You are God’s masterpiece

In my junior year of high school, I suddenly found myself feeling like a failure – unworthy, alone, suffering with acne, struggling to succeed. My grades had fallen; I couldn’t focus; and I didn’t see much of a future for myself. And then, when the school counselor told me I wasn’t college material, it seemed as though the bottom had dropped out of my life.

The temptation to give in to self-pity and depression was very great at that point, but my parents, perhaps perceiving my need for an uplifting environment of thought, sent me to a Christian Science camp for the summer. What a blessing those weeks were! The camp directors and counselors saw each camper as God’s creation, having everything we needed to flourish and excel. It was a time filled with joyous activities, precious friendships, and satisfying accomplishments.

But more importantly, it was the beginning of learning what it means to be God’s masterpiece and how each of us can see that ideal unfolding in our experience.

When I hear the word “masterpiece,” I often think of Michelangelo’s magnificent statue of the biblical figure David. Before Michelangelo began chiseling the stone, a couple of other sculptors had tried working with the extremely large slab of marble but felt it unusable for a sculpture. The young Michelangelo, however, was confident he could work with the marble, and when he finished, there was this statuesque figure of David.

When asked how he sculpted his masterpieces, he is said to have responded, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. ... I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

I love that concept that the sculpture was already complete within; he just needed to get rid of anything in the stone that did not look like the model in his thought.

That is exactly what we need to do. We may sometimes feel like a very imperfect mass of matter without a purposeful identity, but this is simply a mistaken, material view. We need to begin carving away from consciousness anything that does not align with our true model – the Godlike man exemplified by Christ Jesus.

Mary Baker Eddy explains how to do this in the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? ... The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models” (p. 248).

We might be tempted to believe we are material, limited, incompetent, a misfit. But the fact is that Spirit, God, created each of us in the divine image, and God has never lost control of His perfect, spiritual reflection – you and me.

The passage from Science and Health continues, “To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love – the kingdom of heaven – reign within us....”

Since our real Parent is God, infinite Love, it is therefore natural for us to be loving and lovable, unselfish and compassionate. Since God, divine Mind, creates and governs each one of us, it is natural for us to express wisdom, creativity, understanding, and confidence. Since God is infinite good, it is natural for us to include all right ideas, to succeed and prosper.

When we put God, rather than self, first in our hearts and recognize God as the source of our true identity, it is like chipping away the unwanted stone – removing unspiritual, negative traits from our consciousness so that the masterpiece of God’s creating appears, having always existed as our true nature.

When I returned to high school for my senior year, instead of focusing on myself and my perceived shortcomings, I embraced everyone in my prayers, seeing myself and everyone else as the reflection of God. I took advanced-level courses, earned a high grade-point average, and ended up on my school’s honor roll. I also formed strong friendships and participated in rewarding activities. This led me to college, grad school, and then law school. I found more and more freedom, dominion, and confidence as I kept my attention on the spiritual model of God’s creation. And the acne disappeared naturally, too.

The understanding that we are already Spirit’s exquisite masterpiece frees us to fulfill our role as sculptors, “moulding and chiseling thought” to remove whatever does not express the Christlike man. Then, we begin to see more and more of God’s brilliant, divine model being manifested in each of us.

Adapted from an article published in the April 8, 2024, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.